Brief daytime naps may actually be good for the health because they protect the body against the harmful effects of a poor night's sleep, a new study claims. A 30-minute nap during the day can bolster the immune system of men who slept only two hours the previous night.
Power naps restore specific hormones and proteins that were altered by stress and immune response to their normal levels. According to Science Daily, the study was published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
According to the National Sleep Foundation, humans like other animals need sleep as much as they need food and oxygen to survive. In fact, we spend one-third of our lives sleeping. Lack of sleep may cause chronic health problems like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression.
Also, in their website, a short nap of 20-30 minutes can work wonders for an individual. They mentioned several health benefits of naps such as it can restore alertness, enhance performance, and reduce mistakes and accidents.
Dr. Brice Faraut, PhD, of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité in Paris, France said that, "Our data suggests a 30-minute nap can reverse the hormonal impact of a night of poor sleep.This is the first study that found napping could restore biomarkers of neuroendocrine and immune health to normal levels."
In the study, they analyzed data from an experiment involving 11 healthy men ages 25 to 32 years old. They were only allowed to sleep for two hours and for the other session; they were allowed to have two 30-minute naps after having only two hours of sleep that night. Each of the three-day sessions started with a night where subjects spent eight hours in bed and concluded with a recovery night of unlimited sleep.
Urine and saliva samples were taken from the men to determine how having restricted sleep altered their body's hormone levels. It was known that they had a 2.5-fold increase in levels of norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter secreted in response to stress that boosts the heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar.
It was discovered that these men who lack sleep had lower than normal levels of a protein called interleukin-6 which is needed to fight disease-causing pathogens. It is very important in the body's immune response.
However, there were no changes in the norepinephrine and interleukin-6 levels in men who had naps during the day following the night with only two hours of sleep. "Napping may offer a way to counter the damaging effects of sleep restriction by helping the immune and neuroendocrine systems to recover. The findings support the development of practical strategies for addressing chronically sleep-deprived populations, such as night and shift workers," Faraut said.
